Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old New York City mayoral candidate, made history as the first Muslim nominee. He made shockwaves after defeating Andrew Cuomo to win the Democratic primary, and without a doubt, his immigrant story intrigues America.
Is Zohran Mamdani an immigrant?
Mamdani is a Ugandan-born South Asian Muslim immigrant who speaks both Hindi and Urdu, besides English. He was born in Kampala, Uganda, and moved to New York with his family at the age of seven, according to BBC.
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Both of Mamdani’s parents are of Indian descent. His mother, Mira Nair, a celebrated film director, is a Punjabi Hindu who was born in Rourkela and raised in Bhubaneswar in India. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a Gujarati Muslim who was born in India’s Bombay and grew up primarily in Uganda. He is a professor who teaches at Columbia. Both of Mamdani’s parents are Harvard alumni.
Mamdani’s paternal grandparents were born in present-day Tanzania. His father’s family was part of the Indian diaspora in Southeast Africa. Mamdani’s maternal grandmother, on the other hand, was a social worker and founder of the Salaam Baalak Trust.
Mamdani is married to Brooklyn-based Syrian artist Rama Duwaji. The two met on the dating app Hinge.
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Mamdani, born in 1991 to non-American parents in Uganda, became a US citizen through naturalisation in 2018. This is the reason why he can never run for president, as Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution says, “No person except a natural-born Citizen… shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
Mamdani has been a vocal mayoral candidate, talking about various issues, including about his identity as a Muslim and the Islamophobia he has allegedly faced during his campaign. “To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity. But indignity does not make us distinct — there are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does,” he previously said. “In an era of ever-diminishing bipartisanship, Islamophobia has emerged as one of the few areas of agreement.”
Mamdani presents himself as an organizer and a candidate of the people. “As life took its inevitable turns, with detours in film, rap, and writing,” reads his state assembly profile, “it was always organising that ensured that the events of our world would not lead him to despair, but to action.”
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